“We would have liked tougher conditions,” she says. “Net, net Dodd-Frank is a good law. . . . [But] it leaves a lot of the reforms to regulatory implementation, and there have been some problems there.”

The too-big-to-fail issue illustrates the cup-half-full/cup-half-empty predicament, says Bair, now a senior adviser to The Pew Charitable Trusts. There has been “measurable progress” on this issue, with funding costs up and credit ratings down for big banks, she says.

“That’s based on the market understanding that aren’t going to be more bailouts.” But on the half-empty side, “we still don’t have breakup plans for them [big banks],” Bair notes.